A memory comes back to me from over 20 years ago, just before my husband and I left California to move to Switzerland. We were in the garden of our Qi Gong/Tai Ji Quan master, Shi Fu Donald practicing Ba Gua Zhang, the Eight Trigrams martial arts form. Shi Fu Donald had instructed us to lay bricks in a form of a circle and we were doing our “circle walking,” which is a core aspect of Ba Gua Zhang, on the bricks. We spent many mornings doing this and of course falling off the bricks. Our Shi Fu did not require any form of penalty for us falling of the bricks, but we however decided that we wanted to motivate ourselves to stay on the bricks. We volunteered 5 push-ups for every time we stepped off the bricks. By the end of the first training, I remember having done something like 50 to 70 push-ups. It was tiring but also a good feeling of achievement. At the end of this training phase, when we moved to Basel, I could walk on bricks with a steadiness and could do push-ups like I never could in all my life; I could push down all the way to the ground and back up with ease for at least 5 repetitions and in multiple sets.
This past January, I got inspired again to start my push-up training beginning with 3 repetitions in 3 sets, with the plan to extend to more repetitions. I have been in the process of training for handstands for a few years now, so I figured having a little more upper body strength would benefit the practice. I am up to 8 repetitions in 3 sets currently.
On my vacation in February, I was on a beach in the south of Spain doing push-ups on the sand. I realized then that I was just going through the repetitions, counting but not really concentrating on my technique to go down all the way to touch the ground. I was holding back on going deep after 2 push-ups, as I knew that to get to 5 and 3 sets to complete would take a lot more strength. This was when I came to the realization that I was not living in the moment. What was the point of fulfilling the numbers but not performing the motion fully? – I asked myself. If my goal was to gain strength, would doing the movement half-way, while thinking about getting to the end of the set be of any use to me. I became aware in the middle of my push-up that it was not. I chanted “stay in the moment” to myself and continued all the way down to touch my forehead to the sand, pushed back up and repeat. After finishing my push-up training, I sat on the beach watching the waves move to shore and away endlessly. I recognized that this was a life lesson from my own body – my intelligent Bodymind.
What does it help us to go through the motions of life, just counting the days passing but never really living it to the fullest? If I have a purpose for life, what is it? Am I fulfilling it right now? Or am I just counting the repetition of the seasons, wandering aimlessly through space? Why are we waiting for life to come to its end and only then start to live it or regret that we had not lived? It makes no sense. Live now, do what you need to do now because “this too shall pass.”
Image by Maksim Goncharenok on pexels.com
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